Four years after a massive oil spill coated the Mississippi River in New Orleans in a thick, black sludge, the owner of the crashed barge continues to battle the barge operator in court over who is ultimately responsible for paying millions in clean-up costs and fines.

In July 2008, a tugboat pulling an oil-laden barge near the Crescent City Connection swung into the path of the Tintomara, a 600-foot tanker. The vessels collided and the barge broke in half, spilling 282,000 gallons of No. 6 heavy oil into the water.

The dark ooze blanketed the waterway and its banks, forcing the U.S. Coast Guard to shut down river traffic. Aside from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, it was the worst spill to hit the New Orleans area in recent memory.

Cleaning crews mopped up oil from the shores of the Mississippi River after a spill in 2008.Times-Picayune archive

Last week, U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle ruled that the owner of the tugboat and barge, American Commercial Lines, is not to blame. He also released the Tintomara from liability, instead placing all fault on the barge operator, DRD Towing of Harvey. That order came down in a civil case in which the three parties were pointing fingers at each other.

Thus far, ACL has paid the bulk of the clean up costs and damages, which could exceed $100 million, according to court records. ACL has sought to recover some of those expenses from the government and from the other parties involved in the crash.

Meanwhile, the government is pursuing its own case in federal court, seeking unspecified fines from ACL and DRD Towing under both the Clean Water Act and the Oil Pollution Act. ACL had contracted with DRD Towing to operate the tugboat.

Part of the sunken barge is removed from the Mississippi River in 2008.Times-Picayune archive

ACL has argued in that case that, because the company isn’t at fault, it should be paid back for the costs of the immediate spill cleanup with funds from the Coast Guard’s National Pollution Fund Center. In court records, ACL claims to have spent more than $64.7 million in cleanup costs and nearly $700,000 in damage claims already, with another $40 million possible in the future.

Representatives of the Department of Justice and Jeffersonville, Ind.-based ACL declined comment Friday. A lawyer representing DRD Towing couldn’t be reached for comment.

An investigation into the spill revealed that shortly before the crash, the captain of the Mel Oliver tugboat -– an employee of DRD Towing -- had driven to Illinois to check on a rumor that his girlfriend was unfaithful, leaving an apprentice without a full master’s license at the helm.

That man, John Bavaret, had previously been fired twice by DRD Towing for sleeping on the job. Immediately after the crash, a crew member found him slumped over the steering gear and unresponsive, according to court records. His license didn’t allow him to steer without supervision from a captain.

“DRDs principal managers engaged in the practice of using unlicensed crew members aboard its vessels at the time of and prior to this collision,” Judge Lemelle wrote in his Sept. 28 ruling. “DRD’s principal managers also knew that its vessels were being operated by crew members in excess of 12 working hours in violation of Coast Guard safety regulations.”

Lemelle issued his order one year after a 9-day trial in the civil case. He wrote that ACL could have done a better job digging into the background of its contractor, but “we find credible evidence that ACL acted reasonably in that vetting process, albeit minimally here.”

The Liberian-flagged Tintomara was also cleared of any fault. The judge wrote that the Tintomara, which had the right-of-way on the river that day, shouldn’t be held responsible because its last-minute maneuvers to avoid the crash failed.

Hugh Straub, a lawyer with Phelps Dunbar who represented the Tintomara, said the ship’s damages totaled $750,000.

Lemelle wrote that DRD Towing should be held liable for the collision, the oil spill and the resulting damages.

Meanwhile, the government’s lawsuit in the crash, also before Lemelle, follows a criminal prosecution of DRD Towing, which ended in several guilty pleas last year.

The company’s co-owner, Randall Dantin, was sentenced to 21 months in prison on a charge of obstruction of justice for deleting payroll information from a company computer in the midst of a Coast Guard investigation into the collision.

Bavaret, the apprentice on board the tugboat, pleaded guilty to violating the Ports and Waterways Safety Act and the Clean Water Act. He was ordered to serve six months in a Volunteers of America residential re-entry program.

Terry Carver, the captain who abandoned ship for Illinois, also pleaded guilty and was sentenced to three years probation for violating the Waterways Safety Act.